Does military expenditure impact environmental sustainability in developed Mediterranean countries?

This study aims to examine the relationship between military expenditure and environmental sustainability in developed Mediterranean countries: Greece, France, Italy, and Spain. Sustainable economic growth is strictly related to energy consumption which leads to producing a higher level of carbon emissions. Besides, there may be a nexus between military expenditures and environmental pollution. This study focuses on developed Mediterranean countries since carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions are relatively high in these countries. Furthermore, France and Italy are the top countries in terms of total military spending. We investigate the relationship between military expenditure and carbon emissions using the Global Vector Autoregression model proposed by Pesaran et al. (J Bus Econ Stat 22 129:162, Pesaran et al., J Bus Econ Stat 22:129–162, 2004) and Dees et al. (J Appl Econ 22(1):38, Dees et al., J Appl Econ 22:1–38, 2007) between 1965 and 2019. The empirical findings indicated that the relationship between carbon emission and military expenditure should be taken into account from a global perspective for environmental sustainability, and an increase in the global military expenditure seems to be very harmful to the global environment. It can be concluded that country-based prevention cannot provide the desired solution in combating environmental pollution.